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TL;DR - Inconsistent animation quality coupled with a strange affect from the characters is jarring. Weird and horrible things are happening all around these folks, and they are just going on with their lives as if they are powerless to stop it or unable to just leave the town. "Oh, we just saw this horrible thing happen. Wow. Hey, come over for dinner!" Should you watch this? Yes, it's a very unique anime, I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Salad Fingers, Gantz, or any other bizarre horror inspired animated series. You're not expecting the best anime ever, but you certainly appreciate the weird and ... creative.

I know this anime was delayed to fix the animation - they wanted to do it in black and white to capture the spirit of the manga (which I have not read) and struggled to animate the strange body horror - but after the opening episode, it can be difficult to see where the extra attention was focused.
The art is gorgeous, but the animation itself is both stunningly good, and stunningly bad. Schrodinger's animation, if you will. Sometimes it's highly polished and other times it looks like an advanced storyboard or like something Rooster Teeth would've made in the early days of RWBY.
I don't hate this show, it's quite unique from the eldritch body horror to the inconsistent animation, but the characters collective reactions are bizarre to say the least. They have a very flat affect when they aren't screaming in terror, as though they are in such a state of shock about all the otherworldly goings on that they just continue to go about their daily routines in a light daze. "This is fine."
Uzumaki certainly needed longer episodes so things are not so rushed, and more time in the oven (or more money) to polish up the animation. Something strange or horrible happens, then a couple of minutes later something else is happening, then the next bizarre event... Then everyone has some tea before something else happens. It just doesn't get the time to breathe, the pacing is way too fast.
As for the story itself... things are rushed, which prevents any meaningful world and character building. We get information tossed to us in bits here and there in the conversations or as background audio from the TV and radio, but viewers certainly want more than what is on offer.
Conclusion - I rate this a 6 despite the flaws because it's bold and the art is gorgeous. It's not a "bad" anime, but it's also not a "great" anime. It's above average, but certainly had potential to be even better if the episodes were longer. If you enjoy bizarre animations such as Salad Fingers, I think this will be right up your alley. Same for fans of horror anime such as Gantz - you're here for the experience, not fluff.

TL;DR - this adventure with the "trapped in VR" trope is less annoying than .hack//Sign (sorry old school anime purists, but the emo kid in that show was annoying!), but the characters in SAO are more shallow - we never do learn much about most of them. SAO does itself a huge disservice with rushed episodes, and two meh endings. Yes, two endings in one season. It's a fun watch, particularly the first half of the first season, and I'd recommend it to fans of fantasy anime, and perhaps even sci-fi given the setting. It's certainly not as great nor as horrible as folks make ... it out to be. It's an anime with a great start, and it's also an anime which manages to squander the strong start with lazy writing in later episodes. It's worth watching, but I'd certainly say that the show is due for a proper reboot.

I was excited to watch this when it first came out, and quickly became invested in the story, though I was not too happy to have our main character plot armored up right out of the gate with a special skill and experiance from the SAO beta. I felt this was lazy writing, but the world building made up for it, and the anime does offer some explinations for the very convenient skill. The episodes in the first half of the season are focused on survial, progression through the game world, conflict, the increasing hopelessness of escape, and exploring the horrorific behavior of humans who don't fear accountibility for their actions. We become accainted with likable characters and get little slice-of-life experiances from varying perspectives, visit multiple locals, and see several examples of how the victims trapped within SAO have acclimated to their prison, usually making the best of it.
The weakest parts of the writing in this first half are rushed episodes, characters being introduced and removed from the story in a single episode, the lack of introspection about the situation of being trapped inside a game, and the first ending we arrive at.
The anime invested a good chunk of time in world building and preparing viewers for a long slog through SAO likely to conclude during the final episode, but instead we are greeted with a speedrun - the main baddy agrees to a "fair" fight and is beaten, seeming freeing everyone aisde from the main character's lady love. The season begins to derail at this point.
The second half of the season is filled with annoying characters, and the main character's sister. She just happens to play the VR game where the lady love has been whisked off to, and she and her pals aid in rescuing her. Magically, the rare skill our main had in SAO also shows up in this new game. The main baddy is revealed to be a creep who is madly in lust with the lady love and will not willingly give her up. The plot armor is applied very heavily throughout this second arc, the writing is often lazy, and I felt many of the characters were unlikable - it could be down to the English voice actors, but I honestly just think it's the writing.
I'll be fair - the second arc is not as lazy as Overlord - there's still high stakes, real struggles, etc. The main character doesn't just win by magicing up a rare item and scaring people with it. But, coming out of the bulk of the first arc, this just doesn't hit the same way.

In conclusion, I feel this anime had a *lot* of potential, but it was chipped away little by little as the plot armor slid into place. The mid-season finale kicked over the Jenga tower that had been carefully built and it just felt like the writers lazily pushed the blocks under a bed to hide the mess. If the anime had taken the first arc and pulled it across season one, it would have been a much more compelling anime. Jumping ahead to the conclusion just felt lazy and uninspired, as if the writer did not want to grind out the next 40 levels to conclude SAO properly. If they'd just focused on SAO itsef instead of taking the weird side adventure in arc 2, I think this anime would have had more acclaim, and retained that acclaim as the years have passed, but instead diehard SAO fans have seen the flaws in retrospect and as the paint has chipped away, they've soured on the show.
Should you watch it? Sure, it's a modern classic, if not for all the right reasons. It will probably make you feel a little sad that we still do not have proper VR yet. It hasn't aged the best, but there's plenty of fun and emotional moments within the first half to tide you through the less inspired second half.

TL;DR – if you’re a gay man who loves anime, or if you like any romance-oriented anime, watch this. It’s not quite as good as Given, but it’s also miles better than Gravitation. This anime breaks ground in ways rarely seen in yaio/BL, and usually avoids tropes. There's even a nice post-credits scene on the last episode. Just don't expect twilight to come into focus.

This is the third time I’ve written/updated my review. I know, I said I probably wouldn’t update it, but the final episodes compelled me to log in and give another hot take. This is a long review, because I had my ... expectations set really high by the backlash Crunchyroll faced when they announced this, and by the first 4 episodes. The episodes featuring Mao and Hisashi are by far the strongest episodes, and they feel realistic, as if a man in his mid or late 20s is recounting a story about his first love. The other episodes featuring the other two couples are much weaker and I feel they undermined the quality of the show. They're not *bad* but they just felt so unnecessary.

I’m approaching this anime with a few perspectives – I’m a gay American man who loves anime, I’m a sucker for at least giving any anime with an LGBT character a chance, this anime was supposed to be controversial, and I’m fully aware that being a gay or trans person in Japan is taboo AF.

There’s not many *good* anime out there centered on LGBT characters. Calm down, you know it’s true! I said what I said!
There’s Ghost in the Shell SAC (Major might be a lesbian? Maybe bi? It’s not really confirmed), Tokyo Godfathers (I love you, Hana!), Given, Yuri on Ice, and Stranger by the Shore are all that come to mind, and GitS is a real reach by me. I am happy to add Twilight Out of Focus to this list too.

By today’s standards, stuff like Gravitation and Junjo Romantica are just bad, and weird. When I was younger, long before we had stuff like Given and Yuri, these seemed great because there were literally no other options to see an entire anime with characters who had something so deeply in common with me. The menu has expanded a bit since then.

I’d love to see LGBT characters just occur organically and unforced within anime (where’s my gay Vash or Goku?) but Japan just isn’t there yet. The taboo around LGBT folks in Japan has lead to these characters only rarely being portrayed, and usually as a stereotype – either silly comic relief or flamboyant and creepy (Hisoka Morow from Hunter X Hunter anyone?).

Twilight Out of Focus is rumored to be the show which caused Sony to remove all commenting from Crunchyroll – people are *that* bigoted, so naturally I had to watch it to see what made Twilight Out of Focus more edgy than something like Mnemosyne. With that in mind, I’m honestly disappointed. The opening is meh, nothing offensive, graphic, edgy… Heartwarming in a lightly cringey way? Cute even. In fact, this isn’t anything we have not already seen in other shows such as Yuri on Ice, or Given, which is not a bad thing, but seeing similar plots repeatedly does grow tiresome. It’s 2024, Japan, give us the gay anime which our parched souls are crying out for!

Now, hold on. I must be fair! This show opens with a character being acknowledged as a closeted gay man. Yes, “gay” not “uwu he’s cute and I don’t know why I feel this way! Wait, where are you putting that, senpai?! uuwwuuu!!!” This alone feels very groundbreaking to me, and I actually skipped the video back to hear it a second time. “Wait, did he just say he is…?!” Yes, and that alone is actually laudable.

Also, there are s3x scenes! Not pervy pr0n stuff, it's tastefully done. Sure, we've seen gay s3x scenes eons ago (Cowboy Bebop had Faye burst in on one), but this is presented as romance, not go-to-horny-jail stuff. This again feels very groundbreaking.
Nothing is implied, hinted at, or just left to be explained in a manga we’ll never read. It’s right there in the open. I believe this is the first time I’ve seen an anime character saying, “I’m gay” vs. them carrying on with men, but never saying the obvious, or finding themselves bedding a woman back in “real life” when they step away from their male lover escapade (pretty sure I’m looking at you, Gravitation or Junjou Romantica!). It's a very nice change.

As another reviewer pointed out - this show is also refreshing because it portrays the traditional BL/anime SA/PDF File relationships for what they are - gross and wrong. Gravitation and Great Teacher Onizuka, this is *not* (and let's be real, GTA wouldn't be able to air today). While I was tempted to point to a manga by an artist named Mikiko Crash'n'Burn as a point of comparison to Twilight Out of Focus or Given, it also opens with some light SA which is a very unfortunate trope, especially in BL. Tops are not just grabbing up waiflike men off the street and laying the pipe, FFS.

The English voice acting is very well done (most of the time – some stuff is toned down from the Japanese sub). The tone is usually serious, but there are melodramatic moments in the writing and animation which feel jarring to me, akin to Vash in Trigun skittering across the sand and making snarky cat faces with no warning, or some of the more animated moments of Fullmetal Alchemist.
The characters… From the trailer, I knew that we would have multiple couples, which is kind of a trope with this genre. I’m not a huge fan of that, I’m happy with one couple vs. the entire cast suddenly tripping and landing on a chopstick, but it is what it is. Having several couples at once works fine in many shows, but here it felt like the writer was much more invested in Mao and Hisashi while the other two couples were an after thought to pad out the run time.

The pairing for Mao and Hisashi is very non-conventional for a yaoi, a serious tone is set and the two characters rapidly become multi-dimensional. They feel the closest to being “real” to me out of the six total POV characters, but the remaining characters don't manage to clear the bar set in the first act.

The second pairing is very on the nose for BL (uwu, this feels so nice, but he’s a guy!) and actually involves BL so I feel it’s honest satire. The third pairing is… Somewhere in between the first and second? When the anime arrives at couple #3, you will be greeted by a flamboyant openly gay teen who is absolutely on the prowl. Yaaas, queen, yaaas! He reminds me of those single guys whose only goal in life is to find someone to date. Nothing beyond that is planned, and it’s just not cute. There is character development with him and he does branch out a bit. The other half of this duo is also seemingly openly gay and vapid too, but vapid in the sense of not really caring all that much about affection or even relationships. He's presented with an older mysterious brother vibe in prior episodes, without any mention of having a history of openly dating male classmates, which made a grand reveal moment feel like a retcon when the relationship is revealed no one reacts poorly about it being two males. Definitely some plot armor and lazy writing going on there, IMHO.

The animation is well done, though it definitely has vibes from a previous era of anime radiating through. As stated before, the animation has a serious tone until it doesn’t for a few moments here and there.

The story itself is fine. It’s nothing too magical or out of left field, it’s essentially a high school romance drama with an ambiguous timeline as we shuffle through the 3 “how we met” arcs. The film festival is supposed to be the thread linking all of this together, but ultimately it’s a plot vehicle which seems to end up nowhere. We don't even get to see a supercut of the competing films. The Mao and Hisashi episodes are the best, hands down, and the screen time devoted to the other two couples really prevented the story from flourishing into something more than “how I met my first boyfriend” recollections, imo. Hell, the three couples don’t even cross paths outside of school and for all we the viewers know, they’re oblivious to each other’s existence, which just makes having multiple couples in the anime feel like a waste of time.

Final verdict – Opening the show with a new presentation for LGBT characters set the bar a little too high for episodes contained within other arcs, dragging down the overall quality of the show and depriving the story of anything truly meaningful, but ultimately the disparity between how later POV characters are presented doesn't undermine the *goodwill* earned in the first 4 episodes. The groundbreaking pushes my score up from a 7 to an 8. Yes, this is worth watching, just don’t expect twilight to come into focus.

This reboot of Trigun blew my expectations out of the water. I was skeptical but also optimistic and willing to give it a chance. What initially struck me as a weirdly out-of-order and botched retelling of the original anime instead turned out to be a proper prequel for a full reboot of the series. Many people were (and still are) quite upset about missing characters, character career changes, the shift in tone, and the 3D animation, but as the show unfurls most is explained.

Story: In the OG Trigun, we're not given any real answers about why everything is the way it is until well into ... the series. The flashbacks do an excellent job of rounding out the world building, but this reboot flips that on its head by giving us the "why" up front before delving into a familiar story that we haven't actually seen before. If you've seen the OG Trigun, you're franticly searching for specific characters who won't show up on screen because they simply aren't in the story yet. Some characters are also introduced much sooner than they originally were, which fed the misperception about this being a flawed reboot rather that a sequel story *for* that reboot. This show leans closer to the manga than the original did, which is a curveball for many fans because (let's be honest) almost none of us have read it. Once you realize that this show is not just a weird remake, but something else entirely, you'll probably find it more enjoyable. The story we're presented with is hinted at in the original anime, but never fully explored. Now, since I did not read the manga (see?) I don't know for certain what is out of order and what is not, but there is still a mountain of story for the show to dig into in future seasons (assuming this has multiple seasons of course) and some of those missing characters will absolutely show up. The newly invented character specifically for this show (Roberto de Niro) upset some folks simply for existing, but I think the character was well used to build the character of Meryl.

Tone: So, when I first watched Trigun, many eons ago, I was initially jarred when Vash suddenly was making snarky cat faces and skittering around like a spider to dodge bullets, but quickly it worked. Midway through the show, those goofy moments were cast aside in favor of a much darker tone, which was a masterful pivot. For *this* Trigun however, we see fewer goofy moments. It was also jarring to *not* have Vash making snarky cat faces coming from the older show, but I feel that it also worked in the context of *this* Trigun, considering the atmosphere being created and the animation style too. From the start, we're presented with a much bleaker reality which has very real consequences for all involved. The older Trigun chose to build up to that feeling, slowly peeling away the silly carefree veneer and revealing the consequences little by little. Both styles work, but the gradual reveal has more emotional impact because viewers are having rose-tinted glasses plucked from their faces by the plot.

Animation: Stellar. This is not the Berserk reboot at all, it's CG anime with a large budget and seemingly experienced animators. I loved the aesthetic, and my only complaint in this area are the reused assets, particularly in the sand steamer scene - the gang members were basically the same model used over and over, which was immersion breaking imho. The older show had the same issue and ironically, for the same scene. Imagine that, haha. The older Trigun had good animation too, but fell a little short of its space Cowboy Bebop, probably due to the setting and art style.

Overall, I'd highly recommend this series to folks new to anime. I'm even bold enough to ask fans of the original to set aside their feelings to give this show a chance. I believe it deserves it, and I feel that us fans of the older Trigun also deserve to enjoy this reboot as much as we enjoy the original because the world of Gunsmoke has so many stories to tell, stories the original never could have told.

Firstly, if you're going to watch this, do the movie instead of the show. The movie is the entire series with added scenes rolled into one comfy viewing. I believe this show is overlooked by a lot of folks who would absolutely love it. It's well made, well written, and most of the characters are likable. Of course, I'm sure almost any fan of anime can point to a single show and declare, "This is the best anime that no one watched!" I wouldn't go *that* far with this show, but you are really missing out if you like scifi/cyberpunk, drama, and slice of life ... styled anime but have not seen this show. The episodes are short which could rob the show of valuable world building, but that's not actually the case. The show utilizes dialogue and background information (TVs, newspapers) to convey the setting - a world where humanoid robots are everywhere and there is a vocal movement to control them and protect human jobs from them. The classic rules of robotics are strictly enforced and no deviations are tolerated by society.

Story: This is a nuanced tale about the ever-blurring line between man and machine and it has light overtones of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex as a result, which isn't a bad thing. GitS makes the viewer think, and I feel that Time of Eve also achieves this. Should machines be forced to hide their sentience if they achieve it? Should robots be treated as nothing more than mobile appliances, or as people? When does a robot become a person? These questions are made more complex by the various themes and tales presented. A child's caregiver, a bodyguard, a lover, a household appliance. As the main character explores his newfound acquaintances and friends, we're shown these complexities in detail.

Animation: The mix of 3D and 2D is a little jarring and shows the age of this anime. When it came out, it would've been an animation marvel, but as CG in anime has improved (Trigun Stampede to the front, please), this honestly feels 3D for the sake of it at times with the camera rushing around a table or through a room, like it was made to sell you a PS3 game. The animation isn't nearly as wild as the newer Berserk stuff though and remains coherent enough to not get lost.

This is a terrible anime. It's fkn bad. But, hear me out, watch the English dub! The US studio got permission to do whatever they'd like with it as long as they kept a few things from the Japanese version intact. The cast took a terrible anime and made it into a campy comedy firmly belonging to the 2000s. Sure, in 2024, it's not nearly as funny as it was 15 years prior. Society's norms have changed and several of the punchlines are literally dead people now (making it harder for younger folks to get the jokes), but this perfectly encapsulates the 2000s weeb culture ... and the era's Adult Swim demographic too in a very satirical way. It's a rare example of the dub being far superior to the sub. 😂 Honestly, "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" and the Grand Theft Auto 4 and 5 "Princess Robot Bubblegum" satire anime are the closest parallels I can think of for the uninitiated. You'll start the anime and be like, "This is stupid af" but then you'll find yourself growing invested with a story that makes no sense.
Given some of the nasty language used, it's probably not something everyone will like today - there are r-words, f-slurs, n-words, k-words... It's spicy, and I'd be amazed if any of the voice actors still get work today. But that terrible crap is *not* what makes it funny, it's the absurdity of the entire experience. If you can bring yourself to look past the worst elements of the dub, you'll probably enjoy it.

"Hello There!" This is the sort of anime which you watch without any real investment, you just want to be entertained and pass the time. Maybe you're doing dishes, folding laundry, or camped out in a hotel with nothing to do. You open Crunchyroll and fire this up to pass the time.
This is a show which can't decide if it's SAO or Overlord, and that's not horrible, but it's also not gonna replace Full Metal Alchemist as your favorite show. Every episode is a laundry list of how to use plot armor with no consequence for any characters who are unfortunate enough to find themselves ... in danger. I would not go so far as to say that this is as egregious as Overlord, which is quite frankly unwatchable in comparison, but it does tread close sometimes. The human who has somehow become a vending machine in a world modeled after RPG video games can almost always find a card to pull from his memory banks for whichever wild occasion he happens to find himself in. Some of the mechanics also do not make any sense. We see several instances of this character doing stuff which would definitely require more time than he is allotted for example. "Too Bad."
As I said at the beginning, you can't take this seriously or it's terrible. If you watch it with the intention of being entertained, it's perfectly okay. The part of my soul which enjoys some mild cringe is absolutely hoping for a second season.

No spoilers - I watched all of this in one go with my roommate around 2009. I recently re-watched it and through the eyes of someone approaching 40, it's not quite the masterpiece I once believed it to be, but it's largely held up well with age and is still a fun watch. The music def feels dated, and there are instances of still backgrounds which are immersion breaking (those are still common today though).
It's very sexual, graphic, and gruesome, but plot armor does crop up more often than I'd like. There are elements of the show which remind me of Ghost in the Shell, ... Claymore, and even Cowboy Bebop, but those are passing nods at best. Mnemosyne stands on its own with a unique story which spans several decades, and the central characters are two immortal women who take odd jobs as private investigators which periodically leads them to indirectly fighting the main antagonist. Despite being central to the story, these women are not always the main focus of each OVA episode - as the focus shifts away from them, the writing still holds up and the secondary characters are fun and relatable. The final episode of the OVA is probably the weakest - the grand showdown isn't as wild as I'd expected, and the final reveal of "why does this exist" felt pretty mid, but it's not terrible either.
Outside of the story itself, the evolution of tech jumped out at me. We start off with MS-DOS PCs from 1990, see Windows Vista in use partway through, and wind up with holograms like 60 years later. They paid attention to small details like that which really helped with the world building in a way that I've seen few anime lean into.
I would recommend this show to folks who like grimdark, action, and scifi movies/shows who are exploring anime for the first time, and to anime diehards, if you liked GitS, Bebop, Monster, Trigun, Psycho-Pass or simial shows... Watch this OVA, you'll probably thank me.

I'm about to upset some folks, but this anime is low effort trash. From the opening scene, this anime felt like something written by an untalented self-published writer who watched too much SAO.
The dialogue is heavy-handed and clumsy, the central character is extremely overpowered and invincible, the overt haram theme is out of place, the characters are severely underdeveloped and one-dimensional, and every problem which arises is summarily dealt away with a heavy application of plot armor. The animation leaves a lot to be desired, with computer generated content jarringly out of place. I suppose I could see a preteen enjoying this anime, although the ... sexual themes and gore put it squarely out of the appropriate realm for that audience. I do not understand how this received more than a single season, but here we are. 🤷🏼‍♂️
I forced myself through all 4 seasons, hoping to find out why this show it so highly rated, but my search was fruitless. Overlord is the sort of anime you put on for background noise or because you're profoundly bored, IMHO.

Upfront: This is a violent and at times sexual anime, nearly on the levels seen in Rin ~ Daughters of Mnemosyne.
This amine is great, but you really should play the video game prior to watching (or after) to get a better grasp on the lore and setting, because this was clearly made with the intention that viewers would have already played the game.
While some reviewers bemoan "cyberpunk tropes" there's honestly not a large body of popular cyberpunk anime out there, and viewers of this anime are unlikely to have read Snowcrash or watched Blade Runner, so this anime is really bringing the genre to a ... new audience, which bodes well for the genre overall. Ghost in the Shell is probably the best example of the genre in anime, but the perspective of that show is not told from the streets but from law enforcement, government, and corporations instead, which puts Cyberpunk more firmly in line with the genre as a whole.
This anime does raise moral questions around transhumanism like Ghost in the Shell does, but it's not as nuanced, and this show also lacks the extensive character building we see in Ghost in the Shell. That doesn't harm this anime, it's fast paced enough that you don't reflect on what may have been missing until it's over. It's like eating a fine dinner, then realizing a side was missing after you're already full, so you just shrug it off. We've all been there.
Money was *poured* onto the animation team, and it shows. I really enjoyed the presentation, animation, art, etc. The story is good, although the ending felt a bit too "Red Wedding" to me, as an anime fan. As a Cyberpunk fan though, it was honestly expected.
If you liked Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Psycho-Pass, Cowboy Bebop, or even the more lighthearted Time of Eve or Robotics; Notes, I think you'll love Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.

If you're coming from the game to the anime: The anime is a bit more in-your-face than the game. We literally see a few scenes where men are using automated flesh lights for example. 👀 Like, one dude is legit just sitting on the street with a sex toy going to town on him. I had to rewind because I couldn't believe what I'd just seen! 🤣 Those scenes took me out! But those are just scenes in a much larger tapestry which is woven into the world of the video game and are brief enough to not become the focus, similar to the over-the-top advertising within the video game. There are several locations from the game in the anime (though sadly, no Dicky Twister) and it was really nice to remain oriented in the anime as a result. There is some character overlap between the anime and the game, but it's honestly minor. You're not missing anything in the game by skipping this anime, but why would you do that? Just watch this, you'll thank me.